


Halloween Challenge 2013

by Xobit



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Religious, Gen, M/M, Madness, Mirror Universe, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:18:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 6,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2716943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xobit/pseuds/Xobit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>'Yes I am doing it against better judgement'</i> and it really was against better judgement ^^;</p><p>Collection of mostly dark/horror stories. </p><p>Promt list made with help from my DA watchers</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To make it end...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1) Touch in the dark & Hiding behind the couch

There it was again. 

A faint brush of cold and not there pressure against his wing. Skywarp looked up, twisting around violently in the hopes of catching whomever was playing this prank on him. 

It had been fun… the first ten or so times. 

Now it wasn’t anymore. He had not been able to recharge for over three orn, he could not walk strait for lack of proper defragging, much less fly. Sky hunger was gnawing at his spark and processor, his normal cheerful upbeat, and slightly vicious, personality had eroded into a panicky, twitchy shadow. He sat behind the beat up couch in the empty, dark rec room of the Nemisis. 

Rocking back and forth, hunger gnawing at his empty tank. 

Refused to talk to anyone when they tried to get him out of there. More tired than one would think, Megatron wanted his elite trine back. But Skywarp refused to utter a single word to anyone.

Not even to Thundercracker or Astrotrain. 

_Again_!

He jumped up, wobbling on unsteady pedes, staring about himself with big too bright optics faintly illuminating the darkness and a half strangled cry caught as a gurgle in his vocalize. 

Nothing

_Nothing_

How could there be nothing? How could there still be nothing? 

It wasn’t fun anymore!

Skywarp collapsed more than sat, curling into a ball behind the beat up couch, rocking back and forth and humming shrilly to himself as a distraction. It had to stop soon. 

Soon… 

Yes it did, didn’t it? 

…


	2. Not my chassis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2) 'Virus' (movie)/The Thing (movie)/The Body Politic (Short story Clive Barker)/"Fever Dream" (short story Ray Bradbury)/”Message in a Bottle" (SG1 Season 2 eppy) – Mash up ideas

He was repaired, it had repaired him. 

Stopped the leaks, mended the plating, the wires, nodes, circuitry and tubes. He looked like himself again, pristine and animated. 

But he was not the one doing the animating. He was not moving, not talking, not touching.

He was a terrified passenger in his own processor, looking out though his, but not his, own optics. 

And what was worse was that he could feel it was not over yet. His plating might looks pristine and untouched as his chassis moved among the other war survivors, but underneath it he boiled, burned and changed. 

It had changed him, was changing him and his prison was so secure, his own processor. 

He remembered how it had begun. He had been caught up in one of those small battles that occurred between Autobots and Decepticons, doing the best he could to hide. And failed at it! 

Pain and fire, energon seeping from torn and shredded armor. Glowing pink mixing with a strange black liquid seeping from an equally torn cylinder. He remembered watching it, how the blackness swirled hypnotically, seemed to defy the laws of physics as it moved though his life fluids, towards him. 

Remembered being awed in a distant fashion as the life drained from him and his spark flickered weakly.

Then darkness… and when he ‘woke’ again he was walking, stumbling though the waste of what had been Cybertron. Aimless, healing and so, so hungry. And the things it did to sate that hunger… 

But it was doing worse now. 

He saw the smears left when his, but not his, hand touched armor. Watched with horror as they swarmed into gaps, tears and cracks. Soon there would be other captives like him, watching though their, but not theirs, optics as they infected others with this disease. 

This virus. 

And Cybertron would soon be truly lost…


	3. Reoccurring Cruelty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3) Samhain

Here at the Cybertron’s southern pole the biggest and most beautiful of Primus’ temples had been built many thousands of mega vorn ago. It rose above the gleaming uninhabited plain, towers and spires of delicate crystal twinkling in the starlight, untouched by the sun’s rays for over half a vorn. 

This orn the plain was not empty, a procession of richly clad and decorated mech filing into the temple, walking side by side in absolute silence. They gathered in the central chamber of the temple and one of them laid himself down on the dark alter that made the center of the room. 

An altar shaped like a planet, with two long horns rising from the middle, above a hole that seemed to lead ever downwards, to the very core of Cybertron itself. 

The mech seemed to not care that he was lying with his helmet and pedes pointing to the floor, in fact he was wearing a smile that seemed… uncannily serene. 

Suddenly, as if on a cue no one else could hear, the rest of the mechs started to sing. It was a beautiful, wordless song that crooned up towards the ceiling and the stars outside. As the song rose the very crystal of the temple began to sing back and on the horizon a faint light began to spread. 

The southern pole was at the precipice of experiencing its first sun rise in over half a vorn, as well as a ritual as old as the temple the sun would soon shroud in light. 

Inside the altar room a mech stepped towards the occupied altar, the song still rising in volume and complexity. He lifted his hand towards the central spire high above, the clear walls offering a distorted view of the plain they had traveled and the coming of the sun. 

The sun was what they were waiting for… 

When the hand fell it transformed, when it hit the abdomen of the mech on the altar it was a knife. 

Finally the serenity on the mechs face plates broke expression and the mech screamed and trashed, but by then it was too late.

The song continued as the mech died, his life fluids fed to the altar of Unicron residing in a temple of Primus. 

It would be another vorn till the temple heard song again. 

Another vorn till it would tremble under the screams of a dying mech.


	4. Beyond the Lanterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4) The light in the darkness & Full Moon(s)

The lanterns…

They were the light in the darkness, the shield against the stark shadows that roamed under the full moons. And it had been his job to check them and replace them for vorn, he was one of the last to believe after all. 

Sometimes he considered not going, not doing this… then he remembered the newest sparkling in the village, no town now, in the town and vent out anyway. Every vorn, every groon when the full moons would rise in the night sky. 

He was the guardian, and his job was to protect the sparklings, the new generations.

What would happen when he was gone? 

He worried about that some times, but then there was nothing much he could do other than hope that other believers would take up the task. He was an old mech, it was getting harder each groon to go out and check that all the lanterns still worked as they should. And it seemed that he found failing lanterns more and more often… 

There was one in the distance, flickering and he huffed tiredly before trotting off, pede before pede and leaning on his walking staff. Harder every orn. 

He was walking up the hill when his left knee joint gave out and he fell, knocking himself out for a while. Waking up the cold had settled and he knew that the moons would soon both be in the sky, he could already see the cold light of the largest one. 

Laying there he heard something, something large, breathing though rattling vents. Growling on the other side of the lantern wall. His processor froze and he gasped, his own vents rattling ominously. They were there, they were there on the other side of the wall and a lantern was failing! 

Somehow he got moving, crawling, dragging himself and his unresponsive left leg up the hill, towards the flickering lantern.

And all the while the nameless growling thing followed along on the other side. 

The last moon would rise soon high and small, its cold green light mixing with the softer blue of the biggest one… 

“You won’t make it old mech,” his vents rattled and hitched at the voice that was not a voice. Cruel and cold, laughing at him. 

“This time you will not make it, and we shall feast on you, then on your fellow mechs… all cozy and unafraid,” it was there, so distant still, flickering as if fueled by fire and not energon. He would reach it! He had to…

He must…


	5. Warped Creation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5) Masquerade & Stalked

They never knew. 

Never even suspected it. 

So young, so innocent, so sure of their own immortality. The fools, nothing was immortal even on this world of metal and energy. 

Nothing but him that was. The last of the first, the one to judge who was allowed to live and who should die like all mortal things. The last spawn of Primus and Unicron, nameless and endless. 

He changed name every dozen megavorn or so, became his own descendant. Changed his frame, his voice and sometimes his optical color. Killed his supposed bondmate, or gave him eternal life if it was someone he liked. Usually not after so long… mechs tended to bore him after a while. 

All of it, this eternal masquerade, was to make sure he could collect more worthy mechs. 

Hah! Worthy… 

Leaning back against the wall he raised the thin crystal goblet to his dermas and drank, barely tasting the high grade. He was watching a mech, stalking him though the crowds of the ball room. 

A lithe little thing. 

So pretty. So young… so sad. Blue optics that never lit with the smile that rested on full dermas. Bright green, yellow and orange frame, the shine of which belied the pain under the mask of geniality. 

He had seen the moment joy died in those optics. Seen the couple the young mech had been watching…

Oh, but pain of the spark was the most delicious thing. He could feed on that for eons! 

“Hello, you seem a little lonely out here,” so easy to corner, and the pain such a sharp taste on his glossa. 

“Oh, sorry sir… I-I really just want to…” and the mech stuttered to a halt, not sure how to ask the host of the great ball for time alone. Desperate not to be impolite. Such a good little noble mechling. 

“Ah youngling, pain is not forever… but would you like it if you never were hurt again?” he smiled serenely, knowing that he, in this guise, was far too old to, and seemingly bonded, for the young mech to think the ‘wrong’ thing. 

“I…” the pain shimmered in the blue optics, their color paling in its wake. Then anger flashed, a thin wail over a broke spark. “Yes! Yes, I wish my spark was frozen so it couldn’t feel… this!” 

A ‘yes’ was really all he needed.

* * *

“There, there, my sweetling, so pretty you are!” the doll was about the length of his forearm, shimmering green, yellow and orange, such a pretty delicate thing. He put it down on the stand made just for it, right beside the one that had until recently been his newest addition. 

“Play nice with the others, and don’t worry! Everything will be fine, here there is no pain to be had, and such a long time to heal,” he closed the doors to the closet, turning the key slowly as he relished the panic, pain and fear emanating from inside. 

Ah but he would have to come back soon, for now though… yes, another meal awaited, distraught creators to talk down. Mmm yes, their despair would be a nice little appetizer. 

The one once known as Liege Maximo hummed a solemn tune to himself as he left his treasure chamber behind. So many mechs to chose from, so many feelings to feed from. 

So many wishes to grant. 

The smile on his dermas showed just the hint of a fang.


	6. Sound Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6) No one in the family approves of my mate except grandsire – and he’s been dead for forty vorns (years)

The door clicked behind him as the lock ingaged and he threw himself onto the bed, face plate down, trying to choke down the sobs that wanted free. 

Why!

Why, oh why…

Why could his family not just act like a family for once? All he asked from them was a little civility! A little acceptance of his ability to choose someone fitting, him and the family name. He wasn’t a three vorn old sparkling anymore! 

And his Intended certainly did not deserve the treatment they were giving him. His poor lover… not enough seeker encoding enough to understand the subtler insults and the wing speak. A relief and an acute embarrassment all at once. He could not get himself to tell his gentle, loving Intended how awful his family were being…

“Why not, youngling?” a cool, feathery touch stroked down his back struts, between his wings, and he lost control of the sobs. 

Why not? So many, many reasons… Gentle giant Skyfire was such an innocent, not at all suited for the intrigues of the royal family. If he had not removed himself from the inheritance line he would not even have been allowed to court the shuttle. But he had, and no one should have cared in the least that he was seeking a mate outside of wing- and windkin! 

“Have you considered that you might not be giving him as much credit as you should?” the touch continued, a gentle soothing stroke. The touch of someone who knew him, loved him and wanted him happy. “I have watched him, you know, he is stronger than you think. And not as innocent, or as unaware, as you think.”

There was no point in lifting his helmet to gaze questioningly at his grandsire, but Starscream did so anyway. Optics found only empty air, but the touch to his back grew in pressure. 

“Relax, my Grandcreation, I approve of him. Or you know well he would not be here anymore, now,” a pause, heavy with meaning, “you should go talk to him, not lock yourself in here with me!”

Starscream huffed and nodded, obediently getting up from the berth and walking over to unlock his door. 

Despite his dragging his pedes a bit he was… happy, his spark warm and pulsing slow. Of all his family his grandsire was the mech he loved the most, and felt closest to. Even now after he had been offline for forty vorn… 

It hardly stopped Stormeye from giving him sound advice!


	7. Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 7) I'd rather be the devil's whore than your mate (wife)!

Orion was not sure what had made him snap this of all times. Likely the familiarity of the hands sliding over his frame, over his aft, in public. Or maybe the sweet words that meant nothing at all because the Senator only saw him as an acquisition, not a person. 

No… no, honestly he knew what it was. 

The announcement. 

Without even asking him if he had any interest in being the Senator’s Intended!

Still he should have known better than letting his anger free reign. 

‘I'd rather be the whore of a Pit demon than your mate!’

He hated the Senator High Scholar Ratbat in that moment, with his entire spark. Loathed his family… but even so he should have known better. There had been other ways to sabotage this unholy forced union. Even a noble third Creation was allowed to seek sanctuary in the temples of Primus or Unicron. 

Being an acolyte would have been preferable to mating Ratbat any orn! Even if it meant he would never have a mate at all…

Moot now, all of that. He had snapped and he was paying the price. Bound, gagged and blind folded. Ratbat was not known to take public humiliation well, and Orion’s family was neither rich enough, nor high enough in the hiracy of nobility to have sufficient defense against his vengeance. 

And all things considered they may well have helped him. Orion had humiliated them too after all, and while they had been trying to climb the rank latter too!

No, he had no illusions about why he was where he was. And he was afraid, terrified, of what would happen to him now. Not death, no, Ratbat was reputably far more inventive than that. 

He had plenty of time to think and fret, wherever he was being taken it was in a skimmer, and it took a very long time. He even managed some recharge, exhaustion claiming him without his wanting it to. 

Orion was rudely woken by being lifted and tossed over a shoulder puldron, carried somewhere, inside for the pede steps of his captor echoed hollowly, before being tossed to the hard, wet ground. The last sound he heard for a long time was the hurried pede steps leaving him helplessly bound in the dark. 

No matter how much he squirmed and fought he could not get out of his bonds. Nor could he manage to get the blind fold off… Orion was hardly ashamed to admit that he was whimpering from terror, the idea of starving to death was hardly a good one. Then something touched him and he screamed outright, vocalizer crackling from the sudden abuse. 

“It’sss a mech,” there was some surprise in the hissed words, and he was poked, hard, in the side, prompting a wheezing squeak from him, “a noisy one!” the speaker did not sound terribly amused or impressed. 

“Leave him be,” the growl sent cold skittering up and down his back struts and had Orion try to squirm away. Futile of course as a dark chuckle and a large, larger than the first speaker’s, hand landed on his hip to pin him in place. 

“Interesssted, my liege?” the hissing voice sounded slightly miffed but all he cared about was that the sharp tipped digits weren’t poking at him anymore. 

“Indeed I am, Knockout, how often do pretty mechs fall into our laps down here in the Pit?” 

The Pit? 

_‘I'd rather be the whore of a Pit demon than your mate!’_

Orion whimpered again, demons did not exist but that made little difference, didn’t it? He would still be a whore to a mech from the Pit. Ratbat’s punishments were indeed inventive… even if this one had been devised by himself. 

And yet… he did not regret his words. He might come to, but not yet. 

No, not yet!


	8. Through the Looking Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 8) Orn of the Well Rift & Heavy Fog Creeping Along the Streets (and What It Can Hide)

The sparklights glowed eerily though the fog, making the thick, moist white blanket appear like the very borders of the world. It clung to his feelers, like ethereal clammy hands… almost _organic_. Muting all sounds down, as if covered by thick blankets. Outside the little coronas of light lurked the dark, and in that dark monsters moved. 

He could hear them, venting heavily, speaking gibberish, clicking horribly even though the muting of the fog… raving around as if their legs, or other appendages, could not properly support them. Filling his sensitive olfactory sensors with a horrible stench of energon that was off… unclean plating… 

It was almost enough to make him purge what little he had in his tank. 

He did not even know how he had managed to get out here, in this foggy white world that smelled and felt so different from his own. Where he could not properly see anything, where everything seemed hostile and mad. 

Terrifying…

“Little one,” he nearly jumped out of his own plating before he realized he knew the voice and the being it belonged to. 

“Where are we?” it was a squeak more than anything, frightened and small. 

“In the mortal world, little one, now come with me. We must get back though the rift before it closes,” he buried a hand, and a handful of sharp tipped feelers, in the rough metallic fur of the other’s shoulder and let the werecyberwolf guide him. 

“I thought the mortal world was full of mechs that tasted good! This place is horrible!” the big predator at his side rumbled with amusement. 

“Mortals are supposedly a delicacy for spark eaters like you, little one, but perhaps you are too young yet?” 

Maybe he was too young, maybe the mortal world had changed. One thing was certain, he was never, ever setting his pedes in it again!


	9. A moment of Celebration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9) A Haunting

It was the Orn of the Well Rift, the time of vorn where the offline walked Cybertron, when monsters lurked in the shadows… when scary things went bump in the night.

* * *

The building was derelict and had been so for more vorn than the younglings gathered before it had had living sparks. It stood there as a scar on the surface of Cybertron, its garden full of wildly growing, but beautiful, crystals. 

To the younglings they were glowing eerily in the beginning dark and they pushed at each other, acting shy and afraid to an outside watcher. Less than two mega vorn ago such a group would not have been seen at all, consisting of four grounders of different frames, a shuttle and a seeker, two femmes and four mechs. 

The product of peace.

“Just inside the gates, right?” the high pitched whine of the seeker’s voice was subdued somehow. 

“Yeah, that’s what Skurr said, I know he’s a dinobot and all… but yeah?” one of the femmes, a stocky four wheeled grounder, grumbled scuffing her pede on the badly cracked paving.   
“Pff! There’s nothing wrong with being a dinobot,” one of the mechs, slender and red, white and blue, clearly sporting an immobile alt mode, fingered the scope on his shoulder, “my ‘Tor says they just have less developed speech centers, the rest of them are just as into- intelug- smart as the rest of us.” 

No one commented on that, shifting and carefully not watching each other. 

“Oh let’s get this over with!” another stocky youngling, a mech with a distinctly bucket shaped helmet and a royal blue and red chassis stomped and then walked towards the smashed gates. The rest followed him nervously. 

Getting inside was not easy at all, the crystals had blocked any type of path that might have been long ago and left openings only just barely large enough for the largest of the younglings, the shy green and gold shuttle femme. 

Determination and a bet were however powerful motivators and the little group forged onwards, spirits rising as nothing happened that wasn’t normal. 

“Hah!” the bucket helmeted youngling triumphantly put a hand on the derelict building’s door, turning his helmet to smile at his friends, “we did it! We got all the- er?” he saw how his friends stared past him, optics widening and mouths hanging open. Slowly he turned his head back and saw that he was not, no longer?, touching the rusty metal of the door.

Instead his hand was resting on something glowy and transparent and very, very leg shaped. He looked up, optics unwillingly taking in the specs of the transparent frame until he met unnatural white optics set in a handsome scowl decorated faceplate. The scrowling dermas twitched oddly and then the mech bend forward a little.

“Boo!”

* * *

Shrieks dwindled in the distance and Starscream huffed indulgently, shaking his helmet lightly. 

“That one, the shuttle… she was yours?” he turned to smile at his grandcreator, nodding wistfully. 

“I didn’t know… Skyfire didn’t know, it was a miracle her spark survived everything thrown at it,” he laughed a little, knowing that she probably had the same spark as he and his grandcreator, and that that was probably why she was still alive after having her Creator frozen for megavorn and the bond between him and her Sire broken by distance and sorrow. 

“She will be a good one,” the new voice was mild and Starscream turned from Stormeye to smile at another of the immortals, a grounder named Firelore. There were many more immortal sparks from his line. And his line had not started out as seekers… it had been quite a shock. 

“Thank you, I think she will,” he linked his arm with Stormeye’s and grinned cheekily, “she’s mine after all!” 

Stormeye snorted but made no comment on that. 

What comment was there to make? They had their own tasks now, as set by Primus and their lord, the fourteenth first one. The one no one knew, Shadowspark, the incorporeal immortal. 

This… this was just a small moment of a celebration orn. 

And the younglings loved it so!


	10. A Different kind of treat...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10) Trick or treat & Things that go Bump in the Night

He found a perverse sort of amusement in being a dark cycle terror for the Autobots. Him, of all mechs, a simple worker build, an archivist by education, was now the thing that went bump in the night. 

And he intended to make a bump this dark cycle.

A big one!

* * *

“Trick or treat, my lord,” Megatron grinned at the tone, noting that a lot of the mechs stationed around him in the command center jumped a little. Of course he had an advantage, being able to feel his mate closing in… not that anyone knew that they were mated. 

“It is always a treat when you come by, my loyal servant,” he grinned and added over the bond ~My beautiful, deadly beloved.~

“I felt it fitting, my lord, to leave a special message for the Autobot on this of all orn,” tiny razor sharp claws, tainted with flecks of dried energon still, clicked along the arm rest of his throne as the slender, beautiful little mech walked around to put two items at his pedes as he knelt before him. ~A spark and a processor, lover mine.~

The head was easily recognizable, belonging to the Prime heir elect, Sentinel. The spark chamber had been cut out expertly, not a single scratch on the crystal that had once held the heir elect’s spark. An impressive feat that told of someone bold enough to take their time with the assassination. 

~Such a gift, my love,~ he smiled meeting the other’s red optics, heat in his own. 

“I see that the war has not entirely erased knowledge of our heritage,” Megatron’s tone was playful, in a manner of speaking, and his words ironic indeed considering that Darkmount was decorated and preparing to celebrate the Orn of the well rift and the Orn of the Allspark both. As much as celebration could be allowed during a very active war. 

“It never will, my lord, I shall see to that!” the assassin purred back, before melting into the shadows once again. The mechs on duty did not seem much more calm though, now they did not know where the possible threat to their lives were. Megatron had no such fears… Orion would never hurt him, and he knew were the smaller mech was headed. 

~Get comfortable, love, I shall join you soon,~ he purred across their bond, ~and then I shall give you a treat… and maybe perform a trick or two.”


	11. In the wee joor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11) When I was little I wasn't scared of the monsters under the berth. I played with them & Sparklings

“What is it?” the voice was deep but feminine and the fidgeting sparkling immediately calmed looking up, up, up at his Sire.

“I’m scary, Si’e!” a gentle chuckle followed the announcement and the large shuttle femme knelt by the comparably tiny berth. 

“You are ‘scared’, sparklet,” she nuzzled her first Creation, “but of what?”

“The’ mumster u’der the berth!” the little seekerlet pouted at being corrected and not being taken seriously. He was very serious! There was a glowy monster that came from under his berth to stand by it and stare at him every dark cycle! It was scary and silent, and it kept _looking_!

“Have you ever tried to talk to it?” he flickered his optics, winglets bobbing with his confusion. Talk to a monster? Was that even possible?

“When I was your age I wasn’t scared of the monsters under my berth, sparklet, I played with them, and talked with them. Maybe you should try that? Maybe your monster isn’t a monster at all,” a gentle, gentle brush of large dermas over his helmet and his Sire got up again. “Now it is time to recharge, and remember what I said!” she turned and left, pausing at the door to blow him another kiss. 

It took a while for the sparkling to fall into recharge, he had a lot to think about after all.

* * *

Somewhat later, deep in the dark cycle, the small mechling woke to the softly rippeling glow that told him the monster was back. Fear made his little spark shiver and he almost, almost went on pretending he was still in recharge as he usually did. But then he remembered what his Sire had said.

“Hullu, mumster!” he sat up resolutely, looking straight at the, undoubtedly horrible, glowing monster… and saw a seeker. Flickering his optics he frowned with confusion. 

“Well, well, is that a way to greet one’s grandsire?” the glowy seeker said, an optical ridge lifting in a supercilious expression.

“Grandsir’e is of-oflined,” but the little seeker couldn’t help but feel a spark of hope. He knew from the orn care center that other sparklings had grandsires and grandcreators. There were of course a lot that did not, it was all because of the ‘great war’, but he did not know what a war was yet. 

“That is true enough, I don’t have a chassis anymore,” the glowy seeker sat down, legges crossed and smiled at him from a more even height, “but I am your grandsire, and I was the ‘mumster’ under your Sire’s bed too.” 

“Why?”came the demand as the pout from much earlier reformed, the little seekerlet did not enjoy being confused one bit!

“Because I want to make sure my family thrives and is protected, naturally,” the seeker grinned and winked on optic off and online. It looked strange, like there was suddenly a patch of darkness in all the glowy stuff. 

“I like to see how my Creation handles life, and I like to see you grow… you are getting big, handsome little one! Soon you will have to chose a name for yourself, and after that you will soon be big enough to fly,” there was sorrow behind the smile, longing, not that the little mechling quite understood, but he had empathy in spades. Maybe that was why he took his thermal blanket in hand and plopped out of his berth to curl up in the adult seeker’s lap. 

Maybe that was why he trusted enough to fall right back into his interrupted recharge cycle there. 

Whatever it was Starscream cherished it, and he sat with his Grandcreation in his lap for as long as he could. When he had to leave he was careful not to wake the little one as he transferred him back to his berth and pressed a light kiss to his helmet. 

And maybe it was his own long ago buried empathy that had him sneak by his Creation’s berth to place a kiss on her helmet and the helmet of her mate. 

Or maybe it was the fact that he was proud. Not of himself, but of the legacy he had managed, against all odds, to leave behind…


	12. Toxic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 12) I'm not as helpless as you think & 'Toxic'

The room was dark and there were no sounds to tell him what kind of a room it was. Only the cold, uncomfortable hardness under his chassis and the bonds that held him down. Oil Slick hissed wordlessly and twisted his hands a little, testing the metal that kept his arms captured. They did not give, did not even move. 

Another hiss greeted that discovery but it was cut off abruptly when a door opened and sharp light robbed him of his sight for a moment. 

When it returned he saw a mech in the doorway, chest plate bare of any insignia and optics a strange pale yellow color. A neutral? It might well be, such Cybertronians still cropped up from time to time, unaware, or uncaring, that the Autobots had declared the war over long ago. 

“Aren’t you a pretty one,” the words returned Oil Slick’s attention to his captor, the crackling laughter that followed them telling that the mech might not be very stable. 

“Such a long time since I saw a pretty mech here. They all fled you know,” a shake of the helmet and a smirk, “all the ones that could. They didn’t like how I took over leadership of our colony… oh, but you don’t care about that, do you, pretty one, no, no.”

The mech reached his pedes and began stroking his legs. Oil Slick tensed and yanked on the bonds around his hands again, despite knowing better. 

It was all about the show. 

“Such a delicate, pretty little mech… oh, I have missed having company! Don’t bother fighting, I made sure to secure you well, no surprises for me!” the mech’s face mask slid away and revealed a scar that ran from just under one optic down to split the right side of his derma plates. 

“I learn well from my mistakes, you see,” a finger ran down the length of the scar, before the hand it belonged to was put on his codpiece, gently, idly, prying at his panel seams. 

Completely insane. Oil Slick didn’t really care, all he needed was for the mech to come just a little closer… just a little. 

“You won’t be able to run, or fight… and it will be so sweet,” the smirk turned into a blissful smile even as Oil Slick got his wish. The mech moved up to try and figure out how to remove his helmet, it was all he needed. 

A hiss filled the air, gas seemingly escaping from the seal on his helmet and the strange mad mech jerked back. Only a moment later he started to scream. Oil Slick watched with narrowed optics as the mech’s dark colors turned rusty red, and the chassis then simply crumbled to rust dust. He sneered…

“I am not nearly as helpless as you thought!” however he was still cau- the door opened again, this time revealing a familiar figure holding a blaster in one hand. 

“Oil Slick,” the rumble was raspy, as if the voice suffered from disuse, but all he cared about was the fact that Cyclonus walked over to free him. The purple mech was always so aloof, so distant no matter what he did to attract his attention. 

“I see you are still as toxic as ever,” cold optics looked at the dust pile that had once been a mech. 

“Only to those I don’t invite,” he met the cold optics with a seductive smile.


	13. Possession?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 13) Ghosts of the past & Spirit possession & 'Exorcist'

They were not aware of what it was like… 

He was an ideal to them, perfection in a mortal frame. All because he carrier the thing in his chest, touching his spark. They all thought it whispered wisdom to him, tailes of the past, visions of the future. 

They had no idea! 

Once it might have been a blessing, one orn it might be again. But as it was now it was a constant battle to carry it… a battle to stay himself, to stay true to his own ideals. To keep battling when he understood better than ever before what his nemesis had risen against. 

The Matrix of leadership was full of ghosts of the past, and it vied to give him all its wisdom. But the many Primes that had carried it though the Golden Age of Cybertron had been seduced by comfort and wealth. They had become less than they should have been… lived for themselves instead of being the spiritual leaders of Cybertrons masses. Their corruption had become a part of the Matrix, and as it had no will of its own it ‘thought’ that was how a Prime should be now… 

When it was shoved into his chest it had nearly taken him over, rewritten his very spark. Had he not been as close to death as he was at the time he might well have fallen to it, lost himself to it. But his near death had acted like an exsosisem of sorts, allowed the older memories of the Matrix to be drawn upon and his own nature to prevail. 

But it was still a battle. A harder battle than any preformed on the battlefield… at least there it was only his life he could lose, against the Matrix of Leadership it was his very spark that was on the line. 

Such ghosts he carried within him…

**Author's Note:**

> Still missing a few of these, but I am determined to finish it! 
> 
> Eventually...


End file.
